lucy doyle

Friday, May 6, 2016

My most recently painted ‘Pompeiian Still life’; named after
perusing Mary Beard’s book on ancient
Rome, with its inclusion of 3 small but stunning images of wall paintings from
Pompeii: has recently set me on a crazy
spree of cadmium- red- saturated- compositions.

In my youth I fell in love with those Pompeiian red wall
frescoes that decked the walls of those men and women that inhabited that fateful
Roman town. Fuelled, and kept alive and
kicking by looking and studying modernist paintings such as Matthew Smith’s Nude,
Fitzroy Street No1, 1916 and Matisse’s Red
Studio 1911

Mattisse Red Sudio

Matthew Smith Nude

Over the years many of my paintings have fallen into this
bracket of using Cadmium Reds to the point of no-return, hence no excuses for
my latest one.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

A friend recently asked to use this image for a blog post
she was putting up www.sophiebel.com , on make-up and her relationship with it. She inadvertently got where I was coming from
when I painted this little 46x46cm oil painting, part of my Scheherazade exhibition
2013. I was thinking of fairy tales and
storytelling for my show, and combined my obsession with mirrors and how we
perceive ourselves or more to the point our relationship with a very
one-dimensional view of our face, fixed before our eyes, in reverse, and
reflected back with all the distractions of dusty light beams, sheen from the
mirror surface itself, and its constricted frame to name a few, that it’s crazy
to think that this is all that we are, or think, that this is all there is to
us. We put so much into this
interrogation, we can feel empowered and boosted up by what we see or in
contrast we can hyper-obsess about what is not good or what is missing. A
fraction of a cm here or a lift there and everything will be sorted. It’s such a deeply feral relationship… a
face… It must be something to do with survival and bonding, so that we can, as
helpless babies, cement our links with the one who will keep us alive. I was in hospital for a prolonged stay as a
toddler and because I didn’t understand why I was there, I didn’t take to the
experience very well, but I do remember a particular nurse or ward sister’s
face. She was like an angel to me, her
balanced, warm-toned face was my anchor and I still feel connected to her in a
deeply spiritual way. So a face can be
more than it seems. So maybe this is one
of the reasons that we can use a mirror to either ground ourselves in a
reassuring glance, or interrogate our image in a critical way to see whether we
are worth the love that we all seek.

Whatever is happening I am truly hooked and will always use
my mirror to reference and catalogue who I am.
And as for make-up I think the make-up industry knows all, as by supplying us with the aids to conceal, draw-in, redefine and of course colour
in …. We are all endlessly absorbed and fascinated!!!

I painted The Pug and the Pea for my 2013 Scheherazade
exhibition.I was looking at old
Victorian and familiar childhood fairy tales as inspiration at the time and as
the title to this painting suggests it is a pun on one of my favourites ‘The
Princess and the Pea’.

This fairy story conquers up a visual feast,
layer upon layer of mattresses and bedding piled high to conceal and disguise
the crux of the matter: and that was, would the real princess feel the hard pea
through all this fabric or would she be found out as an imposter.

I had previously painted a large painting with this title
for my 2008 Chinoiserie exhibition.(see above)

The pug and the pea is a smaller painting than the original
152x122cm and it is square in format.The thinking behind the dog substitute was quite simply that I had
painted two paintings of my cairn terrier Maisie on this theme for the
Chinoiserie show, where the dogs are sat on velvet cushions looking out at the
viewer reminiscent of the china Staffordshire dogs, that I love so much.So it seemed a natural development for me to
pile up a few more cushions and repeat the composition and tempt a pug dog to
see if he could detect a pea lurking beneath.

Maisie Blue and Yellow both 71x71cm oil on canvas

And a pug… well I do love pugs, even though I don’t own one
(yet!!!) there was a special pug in my life when I was a young babysitter, living
up the side of Carrigona mountain, Kilmacanogue with my neighbours and their young family. This pug was
such a pleasant happy fellow, a constant companion and happy telly watcher; he
was such a comfort against the long evening vigil.

Pugs did feature quite a bit in my Scheherazade exhibition,
from companion pets to replacing despotic Persian Kings, I make no excuses!!.. but
the dogs bland, flattened features and well known calm nature, helped me tone down the story
telling side to these paintings which in turn helped to focus on my main
objective i.e. the paint and composition… well that’s my story!!!

Thursday, December 3, 2015

I have finally finished ‘Polytunnel’. A large canvas
122x152cm in oil. This is the first of a
new series of paintings, that I hope, will culminate in a solo show in a year
or so. I wanted to explore an outdoor/indoor
theme and the garden or allotment, as subject matter is, so far, proving
fruitful. I have just sent this
first painting off to The Doorway Gallery for Christmas . I am hoping to paint a
few more large paintings before my next show, so I feel I can release this one
for now.

I thought I would share a few words about this particular
painting and to elaborate on some of processes that I used in creating it.

I usually start out with a feeling of an idea that I muse
over in my head, pondering whether it will be right for translating into a
painting. Therefore, the seeds for this composition started to germinate this
time last year. In our polytunnel we always seems to have an
abundance of very happy wild strawberry plants, that, and the odd cabbage. Here I had my drawing material and conveniently
undercover from the inclement weather, so by early summer I had an outline of what I
wanted to paint.

In studio working on final painting

I had several versions
that came and went, but I knew I wanted a centrally placed female figure either
picking strawberries or harvesting fruit within the polytunnel with a dress
based on my re-interpretation of the William Morris’s Strawberry thief pattern. I always work from my internal visual memory
when it comes to the figures in my work, but I prefer to work from life for
everything else, this is not always possible but either way the problem solving
exercise to build up the composition takes many forms and references sources to
get to the end point before I can start on the painting itself. When It comes to painting I let the paint and
colour lead and tell me how to proceed, as for me it is all about the tactile
quality of the oil paint and the emotional response to colour, that is my main
concern. The illusional and story
telling of the painting is for me its starting point and just a spring board to
launch myself into the language and sensory magic of paint itself.

Monday, May 4, 2015

My solo show Recent Paintings 2015 is opening this week, and
instead of asking some kind individual to do the honours, we have decided to
have a informal introduction with Denise and Deirdre from The Doorway Gallery
asking me a few questions about the work etc, and hopefully some questions from
interested people that will be there on the day.

It is always quite difficult for me to put in to words what
I am doing or trying to achieve with my work, as painting happens in the
dynamic and is so much to do with the physical act of painting itself, its like
trying to describe to someone how to drive a car, when you break down the
process into seperate units it doesn’t really describe what is going on,
because it is about using a multiple set of skills together in union, that over
time have become part of the
sub-conscious.

Over the years, I have developed a style and subject matter
that is specifically my own and expresses what I want to say when it comes to
mood, colour, composition, perspective, texture, influences, and subject
matter. And therefore I am quite clear on what I paint and how I paint it. My subject matter is taken from my every day
life and I can see repeated themes cropping up over again, in an inexhaustible
need to create sense out of the random chaos of life. I need security and a safe haven to exist in,
and my paintings provide that calm resolve that seems so essential to my well
being. Colour for me is a vital part of
my life, we all respond to colour in an emotional way, it creates a dialogue
within us, and we react to it in all sorts of complex ways, but it is something
we can’t ignore. So as a painter I can
use this innate quality of colour, as a tool in which to construct my
compositions. I have gained your
attention by colour, then I will keep you looking as I take your eyes on a
journey around my constructed space. My
edict is too never become formulaic, or slick, as I need to keep a high level
of concentration up when I paint. The feeling of free-falling that I often have
when I start a painting creates the adrenalin I need, to bring that extra
something to the work. I love the
2-Dimensional surface of a canvas and I want to further enhance its decorative
flat qualities rather than create pictorial illusion and space, which has never
interested me. That is why I disregard
the rules of perspective, and twist and dominate it, so that it plays second
fiddle to the flat surface of the canvas.

I want to create very
personal and individualistic paintings, that honour the beauty of colour and
texture of paint, and I want to explore subject matter that has a relevance to
me and that I respond to emotionally. I take
inspiration from many eclectic sources either the people and objects and
landspace around me, or a response to other historial paintings or objects of
beauty that I come across through books, films, poems etc,. I also love to take on the challenge of recreating through paint, a mood
or feeling that I want to further capture and hold. Just my way of understanding what it is to be
alive.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

'Source' is a small collection of pre-exhibition paintings, they were painted prior to working on my main collection that make up my new solo show Recent Paintings 2015 which will be opening on Thursday 7th May at The Doorway Gallery, on Frederick St South, Dublin 2.

Head Scarf 20x15cm

Last year, I had painted quite a few bright Russian textile inspired flower paintings that have been at The Doorway Gallery. It was while I was looking at this source material for my new solo show, that I became intrigued with some late 19th Century photographs of exiled Khans, nomadic textile traders and Russian peasant girls dressed in beautiful traditional Ikat coats and ceremonial robes.

As a result I painted this series of small
oil paintings, which I am going to exhibit during the show as they help to
further understand, how and why, I paint what I paint.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Yesterday I gathered all my new paintings together for a friend to look at....as it was she had car-trouble and unfortunately couldnt make it down... crest-fallen but not defeated, I took these photos of the paintings before I disbanded them back to the workshop for framing etc. It was the first time I saw them all together in one room in lieu of my solo show coming up in May. Thought I would share them with you!